


Relationship

by michelel72



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:05:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michelel72/pseuds/michelel72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected report changes everything for Rodney and Jennifer.  McKay/Keller; not-McKay/Keller; John & Rodney gen.  Major (non-archive) warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Sings

**Author's Note:**

> I present to you my "_holy crap, that's wrong, even for you_" fanfic entry for 2009 and, most likely, 2010 as well. Chapter one can stand alone; chapter two is optional and has its own warnings/credits.
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> **Spoilers/Timeline**: Scenes are set in the week before and the days after 5x20 "Enemy at the Gate". 5x18 "Identity" has happened; 5x19 "Vegas", being AU, is not a factor in timing.  
> **Warnings**: Strap in, folks. Overall squick/creepy/wrongness warning. Characters acting in unlikeable fashions. In addition: Masked warnings don't work here, so see the end notes for spoiler warnings (both in the category of "sexual taboos", one major, one minor). Rated for concepts and guy-talk about sex.  
> **Credits**: [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/trystings/profile)[**trystings**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/trystings/) gave this a first-through beta reading — and suggested a completely different and less squicky premise; this plot is my fault alone.  
> **Notes**:   
> \- This is a what-if. Happy ending not guaranteed. If in doubt, check the warnings, seriously; and if I can improve the warnings or notes, please let me know. No bashing intended, but this is not a nice story.  
> \- Where not clear in canon, actor demographics used. 

** _ Before Earthfall _ **

Rodney scowled at Jennifer as he took over pressing the square of gauze to his arm. "Honestly, you're worse than Carson. I'm not your own personal pincushion, you know."

Jennifer gave him a severe look. The childishness really wasn't endearing. He had enough sense to look embarrassed. "It's standard protocol for major bug bites, Rodney," she reminded him. She missed Earth, where bug bites might spread diseases or confer poison but pretty much never induced rapid genetic mutation. She handed the blood sample over to the waiting tech.

Rodney paled and opened his mouth, about to start a rant or a freak-out, but then he closed it again and swallowed. He nodded in a discouraged sort of way. "Can I go now?"

His mission had been a minor one, completely unmemorable except for the bite. He didn't even have a sunburn. She smiled and patted his shoulder. "Yep. All done." He slipped down from the exam table hastily and started away. "Dinner tonight?" she called after him.

He paused to look back. "Oh. Right. Yes. I mean, that is, if I haven't started turning into some kind of —" He made a face. "Sorry. Dinner, yes. Do you — I mean, when — seven?"

"It's a date," she agreed.

He flushed a bit with pleasure and turned away. Sheppard had been waiting for him, and he said something Jennifer didn't quite catch but that definitely included the phrase _your turn_. Rodney answered that with a _Not helping, Colonel!_ in that waspish tone she disliked.

She rolled her eyes. He was right, the Colonel really wasn't helping matters. If it was just the two of them teasing each other, she wouldn't mind so much, but the Colonel kept encouraging Rodney to act that way with other people, too. Still, Rodney was doing much better lately, despite the Colonel's influence. She could give him credit for that.

{}

Being the Chief Medical Officer of Atlantis meant handling several different competing responsibilities. Jennifer was supposed to supervise all of the clinicians, serve as a clinician herself, organize medical outreach, oversee most medical research, and somehow find time to conduct her own research.

Fortunately, the statistics for most of her long-term research were collected and collated by the computer system. She was running a variety of studies involving samples collected from Pegasus natives — epidemiology, genealogy tracing, fertility studies, genetic hybridization profiles and analyses, anything they could think of. The ability to study populations isolated from Earth and spread across hundreds of interacting worlds offered research possibilities for decades to come.

Most of those studies were predefined, and she had standard tests that were run on all samples, no matter how or for what reason they were collected. The analyzers were interfaced directly to the data accumulation system, and any tech-entered results also cross-filed to the database. All she had to do was watch for any pattern-match alerts.

The problem was that she wasn't always in charge of the computer system, and anyone who took over for her — however briefly — invariably messed up her settings. She had only been out of commission for a short while this time, thanks to a _thief_ who stole her _body_, and she was still weeding out false alerts days later. As usual, the problem was that the filters had gotten switched off yet again.

Carson swore he wasn't to blame, and that of all people he knew better, but this only ever seemed to happen when she was away for whatever reason. Regardless of how it kept happening, with the filters down, the sample populations kept mixing. She really didn't need to be told that the detection rates of progestin levels and chicken pox antibodies were spiking — they weren't, but the sudden influx of expedition-member results threw everything off. Clearing out all the false correlation reports and secondary study triggers always took ages.

She should definitely write a memo.

She sipped at her tea as she opened the latest alert. Yes, definitely another false hit, because there was no way her own name should be appearing in this particular category. She cursed Carson silently, for not catching this if nothing else. Maybe she should make him fix this batch.

Then her eye caught the rest of the summary.

The next thing she knew, Marie was slapping her back and asking if she was all right as she coughed tea back out of her lungs. She nodded, regarding her drenched computer with dismay. She reached for her radio, unthinking. "Rodney?"

After several seconds he answered with an irritated-sounding sigh. "Yes?"

"I ... I kind of spr—. Spilled. Tea. On my computer. What do I do?"

"Unplug it, if it's plugged in. I'll come take a look at it."

"Oh." The thought filled her with panic. "No, no, that's — it's okay, really, I'm sure it'll be fine, I know you're busy. Really."

"It's not —" he started, sounding concerned now.

"Really. I'll handle it. Don't — just go back to what you were doing, okay?" She cut off the radio hastily.

Then she pressed her hand to her mouth, fighting back the moan of dismay. It couldn't be right. It had to be a false reading.

She had to know.

She looked up at Marie, who had retreated to the doorway, giving her a measure of privacy but sticking around to make sure she was all right. "I need a blood sample," she said firmly, shoving her own sleeve up as she headed over. "Will you draw it for me?"

She slapped every confidentiality flag and tag she could find on the sample and the testing requisition. She ordered the most detailed test possible. She had to know for sure.

Less than a week later, she did. She was proud that she was able to walk calmly out of the room before she threw up.

* * *

** _ After Earthfall _ **

John glared at the Golden Gate Bridge, because he was trying not to glare over at Rodney and Keller.

He should be happy for his friend. He knew that. He wanted to be.

But he just couldn't. Keller was nice enough, but she was ruining McKay. She apparently thought she was improving him, and maybe once John would have thought that was a good idea, but she was wrong. The McKay who was over there tempering his cynicism and cooing that she was all he needed was the one who had started holding back, swallowing his words, trying to be considerate and cheerful and all that crap.

The McKay over there wasn't any good at any of that, and he was overriding his own instincts in the attempt. He hesitated to yell sufficiently at new scientists who made truly dangerous mistakes. He tried to temper his reactions, so that John now had trouble telling when a situation was rapidly escalating from _problem_ to _we're all about to die_.

The McKay over there was going to get them all killed. The diminished, defeated, pathetically _grateful_ look in his eyes all these months was just the icing on the whole crap cake.

"They are sweet, are they not?"

John reminded himself that trying to punch Teyla would only end in pain. He held himself to a grunt.

"_John_," she chided. "He is your friend, _our_ friend. Do you truly begrudge him happiness? And they will need our support very soon."

John eyed her warily. "What do you mean?" He could think of a few possibilities, but they were all both disastrous and unlikely.

She winced. "I did not intend to bring this up with you directly just yet. But ... promise me that you will not be as difficult with him as you were with me. I have forgiven you, but I do not know that he would be so willing. Or that I would be again."

He frowned at her. "Am I supposed to know what you're talking about?"

"Is it not obvious? I am sure he will be somewhat distracted, but he is often so — it is his nature. We will protect him as always. And I am sure there will be times when Jennifer will appreciate our getting him ... 'out of her hair'?"

She had to be talking about marriage. She must mean that Rodney had proposed to Keller, without saying a word to John first. That, or — John's brain short-circuited right about there. There was no _or_.

"I confess I am confused," Teyla said. "I thought the custom among your people was to speak public words of binding first."

"First," John repeated numbly. Apparently there was an _or_ after all.

"Do you think they would appreciate any of the supplies I no longer need? I know that your people often speak more highly of Earth-made goods than anything from Pegasus." There was a hint of hurt disapproval to her tone.

John really couldn't process that, though. "She. You're saying. She's." He swallowed and fixed his eyes firmly on the Bridge. "Pregnant."

"Didn't you —" She broke off for a moment, and then her hand firmly guided him to turn and look at her. "You had not heard. I'm sorry, John, I did not realize. But yes, it is widely said that Jennifer is pregnant. I heard shortly before we learned of the threat to your planet."

"He didn't ...." John wasn't actually sure what he meant to say.

"He has not spoken to me, no. Nor to you, I see. I understand it is custom among some of your people not to speak of such things before a certain time, in order to avoid tempting ill fortune. But I am sure he will tell us soon."

"Yeah," John managed. _Pregnant_ meant disaster. _Pregnant_ meant McKay leaving, settling down on Earth, picket fence and family and some regular-hours job that would suck the life out of him more thoroughly than any Wraith. _Pregnant_ meant Atlantis without its brightest, surest hope of survival and John without his best friend. "Yeah. Can't wait."

{}

"All right, Colonel, what the hell is your problem?"

John winced. He really hadn't expected Rodney to track him down. McKay avoided the training rooms almost as thoroughly as he avoided citrus.

But here he was. John gave up on his half-assed forms practice and tossed the sticks into a corner. "Problem?"

"Don't," McKay snapped. He looked awful, as usual, thoroughly exhausted. He and Zelenka had been racing around for most of the past three days, wielding every scientist they had — along with most of the Marines — in their attempts to keep the battered city from sinking into the Pacific. John had even seen an anthropologist and a linguist helping with some sort of spot-welding project.

For McKay to allow any social scientist within ten feet of anything of importance indicated a true crisis. That was why John had stayed out of his way. Yep.

McKay didn't seem to have caught on to this very sensible plan, though. "I'm not blind. You're avoiding me. Why?"

"Avoiding?" John meant to sound like he didn't know what Rodney meant, but he had already used that once. Which meant he probably just sounded like a parrot. He shrugged. "You've been busy. You always tell me not to distract you when you're busy."

"Yes, and you've _ever_ listened to me before. Seriously, Sheppard, what the hell? Every time I catch sight of you for five seconds, you run off. I really could have used your help a couple of times, or, you know, someone to _talk_ to for the _four hours_ I spent getting the pumps in 12-sub-2 working, and it's just ... I mean, did — did I do something?"

Oh hell no. McKay did _not_ get to play the hurt-and-bewildered thing, not now. "I guess that's one way of putting it," John said with a tight smile.

McKay looked startled, as if he had expected John to keep denying anything was wrong. "Wait. What?"

"Why are you even bothering with the repairs?" John asked him, both angry and honestly puzzled. "I mean, we both know it's not guilt, because guilt is for lesser mortals, right? Hey, I know — you just can't wait to see the backs of us. That's it, isn't it? You just want to make sure that we have a prayer in hell of actually making space if the IOA ever agrees to let us go back to Pegasus. Nice clean break so you can start your nice clean new life, right?"

McKay edged forward slightly. "Look, did you manage to give yourself a concussion with those sticks or something? Because you're seriously not making any sense."

"You know what really gets me? You couldn't even tell me yourself." McKay finally caught on, all the color draining from his face. "I had to find out from _Teyla_."

McKay turned even paler. "Teyla? _Teyla_ knows?"

"Half the damned _city_ knows, McKay! When the hell were you actually going to tell us? Tell _me_? Or were you just going to run off without saying a word?"

"Half the city," McKay echoed. He ran his hand over his face, looking sick. "How ... _how_ .... Wait. Run off, what — I'm not going anywhere." That might have been a little more convincing if he hadn't sounded so dazed.

"Have you told Jeannie yet?" John demanded. "I'm sure she'll _love_ hearing about this, after the way you cut her off for doing the same thing." He knew that was a low blow, but he couldn't help himself.

"_Jeannie_? What does — what — _what_?"

"Was that whole thing just because you were jealous? Figures. Just what you always really wanted, right? A perfect blonde wife helping you pass all those valuable genes along. Just one thing I don't get, though. What's with the rush? I always figured you for the 'make her an honest woman first' thing. Even Teyla noticed you're doing it all backwards. Or did you figure you'd just hop over to City Hall in a few days and take care of it? Or —" his stomach dropped even further "— did you already marry her and not even tell any of us about _that_ either?"

"Okay, you know what? Stop. No, seriously, _shut up_." McKay frowned with his "I'm performing profoundly complex equations in my head" expression for several seconds. Then he looked startled, and then alarmed, and then ... disgusted? Finally he gaped at John. "You — you think ... she's ... we ... _I_ —"

John probably could have predicted the tongue-tripping stammer. Even the sudden look of anger — no, _rage_ — wasn't completely out of left field.

But the right hook — yeah, that was kind of a surprise.

* * *

** _ Before Earthfall _ **

Jennifer had tried ignoring the test results for several hours. She tried closing the file and then opening it fresh, just in case she was misinterpreting them. She tried explicitly disbelieving them.

None of it worked.

She would have asked for a second pair of eyes, if she intended for anyone in the entire universe to know about this, ever. Which she didn't.

Well. One other pair of eyes. She had to let Rodney know. Right?

Maybe not. Maybe she didn't. Who wrote the rules for something like this? Who said she had to tell him anything?

But if she didn't, then what? _Dear Rodney, nice knowing you, I've decided to go live someplace very far away for reasons I can't explain_? Yes, that was _so_ likely to work with him. Because he was absolutely _not_ the kind of guy to turn into a borderline stalker if he was dumped without any explanation.

And she was pretty sure she would never be able to cover her tracks enough to keep him from finding her, if he really wanted to. To hear him tell it, he could probably track down Jimmy Hoffa if he wanted to, and he _was_ scary good with computers. No, there was no way she would be able to disappear, not without help from some ... agency or, or government, and even then.

So she was going to have to tell him _something_, but — wait. Wasn't that backwards?

Didn't he owe _her_ an explanation?

{}

"Jennifer. Um, long time no see. I mean, I know there was that bite, but it's been almost a week and I'm pretty sure I'm not turning into a bug, so you didn't have to avoid me. Well, a couple of times I thought I was maybe getting scales or something, but I think it was just dry skin. And there was that thing where I thought I was getting compound eyes, but it turned out I was just dizzy because I got caught up with a simulation and skipped lunch. And, okay, I know that time Sheppard was turning into a bug he grabbed Teyla and kissed her, but I would absolutely never do that to you. Not — not that I'm saying I wouldn't want to kiss you, you know, normally, because of course I would, because you're —"

Jennifer covered her ears. "Rodney, shut _up_." She waited until his mouth was actually closed before dropping her hands, moving one to cover her mouth briefly. She looked around at his room. "Are we actually alone in here?"

"What? Yes, of course we're — right." He winced, his hands twisting anxiously. "Alone. Yes."

"Good. Because we need to talk."

His eyes went wide and his hands started flying. "No no no no no, no talking, no need to talk, everything's fine, great, perfect really. Wonderful! Right? Or, okay, maybe not perfect, but whatever I did, I'm sorry, okay? Didn't mean it, _really_ sorry, never happen again, whatever it was. So just tell me what I did and then I'm sorry and that's all, okay? And we don't need to talk —"

"Rodney!" she snapped. He immediately clamped his mouth shut and shoved his hands up under his arms. He looked hurt, and scared, and not even a little bit defensive.

When had that happened?

She felt weirdly displaced, as if she was suddenly seeing _them_ from the outside. Or maybe just seeing clearly for the first time in months.

Their first real date, he had been obnoxious and she had called him on it. Eventually he pushed back. He had agreed with her that he should just accept that Tunney would get full credit for shutting down his own invention, even though Rodney had figured out the solution — but he told her he _didn't_ accept it. He told her that it still bothered him, and that his need for credit wouldn't change because they were dating.

She had thought it was petty — still did — but she appreciated that moment. It told her she could keep pushing him, she could help him be better, because he would push back if she went too far.

Only ... she couldn't remember him pushing back again after that one time. For a moment all she could remember of their relationship was her voice, criticizing, and his fumbling apologies.

She didn't want them to be that way. She didn't want to be that person. How had it gone so wrong?

And given what she knew now — _wrong_ didn't even start to cover it.

"It's not —" she started to tell him, but that wasn't right. It _was_ like that, it _was_ what he thought it was, at least in part. Unfortunately, it was a lot more than that.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself. "Look. There's something we need to talk about, but first, I need you to make sure no one will ever know about this. The door — is it locked?" When he nodded, she pressed, "_How_ locked? Can you make sure that absolutely no one can get in here, no matter how, until we're ready to leave?"

"Well, yes, of course —"

"And what about surveillance? Audio, video — I don't know what kind of coverage the private residences have. If there's anything, even if it's super-top-secret, I want it off. And what about windows, or — or air ducts, or — anything. Anything."

Rodney frowned at her for a few seconds. Then he went over and did something to the door crystals. After that, he went to his computer and did something with that for a short while. "Okay. We've got complete isolation. Why do we need complete isolation?"

"Wait, no, give me your radio, too." She took her earpiece off, turned it off, and held out her hand.

Rodney drew back. "Um, no. Look, no offense, but you're acting kind of ... different, so if it's all the same to you, I think I'll keep my radio."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm me. I'm not that thief person."

"Yes, right, except —"

"I'd say that anyway." She sighed. "Look, I've been around the SGC. I've been here. I know the sorts of things that happen, and I don't want any accidental broadcasts here."

They worked out a compromise — he would turn his radio off and put it in his pocket, and she would do the same with her own. He was also careful to keep a few feet between them, just in case.

She sat in his computer chair and pulled the folded printout from a different pocket. She had wiped every trace she could find from the computers, and later she would have Rodney check to make sure it was really gone. This was the only remaining evidence.

She ran her fingers along the creases. She had spent hours trying to figure out how to start this, but it wasn't until she actually spoke that she was certain what she would say. "Tell me about 1981. September."

* * *

** _ After Earthfall _ **

John considered getting back up, but he didn't really see much point. He waggled his jaw experimentally. Yeah, that was going to hurt for a few days.

"You … you _sick_ …." McKay loomed over him, hands clenched. "How could you even _think_ that I would —" He broke off, blinking rapidly and then looking at his own right fist, bewildered. "What, seriously?"

John was never, ever going to live this down, because who the hell got flattened by Rodney McKay? And McKay had an unfair advantage, because John's guard had been down, because — well, who worried about getting flattened by Rodney McKay? He just gave an eyebrow-shrug as his answer. It wasn't like he could exactly deny it, so he might as well give the guy credit. Even if McKay had cheated by, well, by being himself.

"Huh." McKay's mouth quirked into that lopsided grin of surprised pleasure for a few seconds but then twisted into a scowl. "Except, wait, no, you don't get out of this that easily, so don't even try. You — how dare you? Saying that about — saying she — I —_implying_ —" He grew steadily redder as he struggled to complete even one statement.

"What the hell, McKay?" John sighed. "I just brought up what most of the city knew before I did. Which I'm not going to let go, by the way. I'm your team leader." Not to mention friend. "I should know this stuff. Where do you get off getting mad at me about it? It's not like _I_ got her pregnant." McKay's face turned so furious and so flushed at that, John started seriously worrying about sending the guy into a stroke. He frowned — ow — at the way McKay was reacting. "Wait, so you're saying she's not pregnant?"

"What — of course she's not pregnant! She'd better not be pregnant. If someone — no, no, she is _not pregnant_. Why the hell would she be pregnant?"

John just raised an eyebrow at him, partly because he really would like McKay to stop saying _pregnant_ and partly because, well, the answer was pretty damn obvious.

That somehow just set McKay off further. McKay gaped at him. "You think — we —" His hands moved in a gesture that was probably just a vague attempt to shape the concept for his own comprehension but had to be obscene in at least five cultures. His expression darkened further.

John braced himself for volume, but he'd apparently pushed McKay past even that, which meant they were entering previously theoretical territory. McKay's voice shook as he rasped, "She's my _daughter_."

* * *

** _ Before Earthfall _ **

Jennifer had known for years that she wasn't genetically related to her father.

She was taking a course in genetics, one in which they learned to run basic assays themselves, and they were running familial samples so that they could trace the relationships. They weren't required to use themselves as subjects, only to find two closely related individuals and document their relationship in the reports. Jennifer, like most of the rest of her class, just hadn't seen much point to asking two people for samples, especially when she knew she would be seeing her father the weekend following the assignment.

Certainly she meant to _ask_ him first. But she had overslept, so he was outside when she went into the bathroom. His comb was right there, with one perfect rooted strand. It was just so easy to check that task off mentally that she had pretty much forgotten about it by the time he came back inside.

When she compared the results, at first she assumed she had done something wrong, which upset her. She had left herself plenty of time to do the assignment at least twice more before the report was due, but she wasn't used to failure. It made her feel guilty.

She went home again the following weekend, again taking along the swab kit she should have used the first time. She explained the problem to her father, fully expecting he would reassure her about her classes and agree to the swab with hardly a thought.

She never expected to learn her testing was accurate after all. She never imagined he could be that angry at her. She had never _dreamed_ her family was anything but what she had been told all her life.

He was speaking to her again by the end of the weekend, barely, after nearly two full days of tears and apologies. He wouldn't explain, saying only it was her mother's business and not Jennifer's. They both still felt her absence too keenly for Jennifer to push, and she simply _couldn't_ lose her father, too. Not over something so _stupid_.

Instead she turned to the kids she had babysat over her high school summers. She went with Amy Mullen and her mother, because it occurred to her the Grabowski twins might be fertility-treatment kids and she didn't want any complications from that angle. That gave her what had to be the answer. Someone from her father's generation wouldn't want to talk about fertility problems, especially not to his-daughter-the-medical-student. It was no big deal.

She couldn't exactly ask her mother, but she had seen her own baby photos. So maybe her mother had required a different donor, or needed in-vitro, or even arranged to adopt her as a newborn in a closed adoption. It didn't matter that she didn't share genes with her father, and it didn't matter that she would never know if she shared genes with her mother. They were still her parents, so it _didn't matter_.

She told herself that until she believed it.

She also tried to steer her coursework away from genetics. Her advisor wouldn't let her scrape by with the bare minimum, so she took what she had to and tried to focus on other areas. So of course she ended up having to step in for Carson Beckett, one of the world's foremost geneticists. She couldn't manage to get away from it, not for long.

And now it was all happening again, and she was just as unprepared as that first time.

* * *

** _ After Earthfall _ **

John just blinked at McKay, confused. Daughter? "Who is?" He'd said Keller wasn't pregnant, dammit.

"Who — she is, you idiot! Who the hell do you think we're —" McKay clamped his hand over his mouth, the color draining away from his face again, which probably wasn't healthy. "Oh my god," he groaned through his hand. He then ran both hands through his hair, eyes wild. "Oh my god, I'm not supposed to tell anybody, she's going to kill me —" He flopped down on the mat beside John. "I'm dead. I'm completely dead. She's going to kill me, which will make me dead, which means I'll never get my Nobel, and she has _scalpels_ —"

"Breathe, McKay." Finally, something he knew what to say to.

"Breathing. I like breathing. I'm going to miss it. Thanks so much for rubbing that in. Incidentally, while we're on the subject, I hate you." He said that without heat, though, so it wasn't anything John hadn't heard before. Pretty much daily.

They lay there, side by side, both regarding the ceiling. "Remind me, which one of us got punched here?"

"Oh, you _so_ deserved that. Saying that — that —"

"I didn't just make it up, McKay," John said levelly, cutting him off before he could get all worked up again. "It's pretty much all over the city. I had Teyla lecturing me about being supportive."

McKay made a sound of pained sympathy at that news. Other than that, there were a couple of minutes of silence as John tried to fit his head around what McKay had said.

"So, wait. You're saying that Jennifer Kel—"

"_No_. No, I'm not, I'm not saying anything. You heard _nothing_. But … well … you did _not_ hear this from me, because you didn't hear it at all but even if you did it was _not_ from me, but, well … um … yes."

John considered that for another couple of minutes. "How does that even work?"

"How do you _think_ it works? Half her DNA comes from me. Even for you, it should be pretty …." He sighed, and from the corner of his eye John could see McKay running a hand over his face. "It's a mess."

* * *

** _ Before Earthfall _ **

Rodney told her about September, 1981 … sort of. He rambled on about classes and music and geek movies, never once mentioning anything of importance.

Finally she couldn't take it anymore. "Look, stop, okay? I know. Just tell me the truth."

He blinked at her. "The … truth? I mean, sure, it's just a movie. It's not exactly Shakespeare — not that Shakespeare is exactly all that great, actually, just because all the _humanities_ types get all —"

With a sigh she shoved the report into his hands. "_Don't_."

Rodney stared at the report for much longer than he could possibly need to read it. Finally he looked up at her, clearly confused, and then tried on a careful smile. "It's … funny? A good joke?"

"It's not a joke."

The fake smile turned to a look of real concern. "Okay, then ignore it. Seriously. I know people talk, but our relationship is really none of their business. In fact, I'll track down whoever did this. You shouldn't have to put up with this sort of juvenile prank. It's harassment, actually. We'll report them to Woolsey, get them —"

"No!" That was the _last_ thing she needed. "It's not a prank. It's real. I double-checked. It's _real_."

He scoffed. "That's not even _possible_."

She straightened. "Isn't it? The tests aren't lying. I drew your blood myself. It's _real_. So what really happened?"

"What do you mean, what happened?" He didn't look guilty, just bewildered. "I'm pretty sure I would have _noticed_. It's _not possible_."

"I just want the truth, Rodney. I _deserve_ the truth. Was it an actual girlfriend, or just some girl one night?" Was it her mother, somehow, or some scared teen? "Did you freak out? Did you even _try_, or did you just run away?"

"Would you please listen to me?" He had backed away from her slightly. His eyes were wide. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!"

Jennifer had believed in lies all her life. She didn't know who to believe anymore. All she could rely on were facts, and the only fact she had at the moment was the paper in Rodney's hand. "Just _tell me what happened_!"

* * *

** _ After Earthfall _ **

McKay brought his hands up behind his head, elbows wide, letting out another long sigh as he settled in. "When I was twelve, I … changed my priorities. I decided to get serious about science, because it's logical and orderly. That's the year I built the model atomic bomb."

John had never imagined there might have been a time when McKay wasn't into science. The rare times he'd had to imagine McKay's childhood, he'd just pictured a tinier version of Rodney, with a science kit or a telescope. It was really kind of weird how little they knew about each other. What on earth would have been his "priority" before science? For that matter, what kind of twelve-year-old had "priorities" at all, much less went around changing them?

Then again, what kind of twelve-year-old built an atomic bomb for a science fair? Well, McKay, apparently.

"It was supposed to be hard, so I wanted to prove I could do it. Which I totally could. And, well, it's possible I may have had some 'anger issues'." McKay lifted his hands briefly to make actual air quotes. "Anyway, once everybody convinced themselves I wasn't part of some junior revolutionary group, they kind of gave up on that 'keeping me with my peer group for socialization' nonsense. They actually let me start taking classes closer to my level and test out of a lot of things. They also …." He took a deep breath. "They started letting me take a few college classes. Of course, I was still ahead of a lot of the college kids, especially in math, so I did some tutoring. I mean, I hated it, but it was easy and there aren't a lot of ways to make money at that age. And there were fees and things like that, so, tutoring."

John was pretty sure that, even as a freshman, he would sooner have dropped out than hire a pre-teen as a tutor. Apparently that wasn't universal.

"I got a lot of work from fraternity guys, and sometimes they'd have me come over to their house for it. And sometimes there were parties, and they didn't really care if I stuck around. I must have been too small for them to bother messing with me, and besides, they kind of needed me if they wanted to pass. So I stuck around sometimes, because, well, there were girls."

"Weren't you afraid of cooties?"

"What, seriously? My god, you were _eight_ until you joined up, weren't you? What am I saying, you're still eight. No, Colonel, trust me, I was very much interested in girls, and having a built-in excuse for practically being eye-level with their breasts certainly didn't hurt."

"You're telling me they didn't just slap you down?"

"Some did. A lot of them thought I was cute, or funny, or whatever. And … I was pretty."

"Humble, too." That was automatic; he honestly wasn't surprised at McKay's ego at this point, or that it applied to his youth.

But McKay snorted. "Yes, every 13-year-old _boy_ dreams of being called _pretty_. Every 13-year-old boy wants to be some confused coed's _lesbian experiment_. I'm not saying I was some masculine ideal at that point, I'm just saying that there were things about me some girls liked. And, well, especially the ones who had been drinking."

John covered his face with his hand, careful of his jaw. "Mc_Kay_. Please. If you were having drunken sex at that age, I seriously don't want to know about it." Especially unprotected, and god, please let this end _right now_.

"Hardly. I'm certain I'd remember if I ever got that far. Besides, you _asked_, so deal with it. No, there was some kissing, some groping — mutual, I assure you — some rubbing, that sort of thing. Grow up," he added as John made a gagging noise. "But trust me, the height of my sexual exploits at that age was walking home without underwear, because it was less uncomfortable to throw it away and go without than walk home in it after I'd — you know." Oh, sure, _now_ he got prudish.

"Well, that doesn't explain how —"

"I don't know, okay? I seriously don't, and the only things I can come up with … I mean, I just told you I was leaving, well, genetic samples around. That's literally the only way I can think of that makes any sense at all, but that would mean someone was going around …." He let out a shaky breath. "This is actually freaking me the hell out, okay? And I haven't been able to say one damn word about it, to anyone, and the thought that there was someone following me around when I was _thirteen_ and collecting my _sperm_ to _breed children_ —"

"Breathe, McKay." Although, yeah, if that was what happened, that was _seriously_ wrong.

"How many? Would they really have done — whatever this was to get only _one_ kid out of it? And who the hell would it have been? I was only about a year out from being interrogated by your CIA, and that thought _really_ doesn't help me sleep. And when I think of all the samples I've just handed over to your government for various physicals …."

"An army of McKays." Now there was a truly terrifying thought.

"Yes. Possibly."

"What, you're telling me you don't love that concept? Your genes?"

"It'd be fine if I'd known about it. It'd be fine if it was _on purpose_. By _me_. With someone I trusted to raise them. But I don't have any idea how many, or who, or how long it went on, or if it's _still_ going on, or _what the hell it's for_."

"Okay. Yeah." Because … yeah. This made that whole creepy thing with Mara look like a firm handshake. "Does Jennifer know anything?"

"No. Not really. Not like that. She thinks she might have been steered here — she says she took a lot of opportunities and openings for granted. Not that she's not qualified — I mean, obviously she's a genius — but she's trying to figure out whether anything might have been manipulated. Like whether anyone pushed her specifically into the research that got her noticed by the SGC, that sort of thing. But even if she can tell if there is someone who got her here on purpose, is it the same people, or an opposing organization, or someone unrelated trying to make up for it all somehow, or … I don't know. _Amway_, for all we know."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you can rule them out."

McKay sighed again. "Right. Great. One down, infinity-minus-one to go."

* * *

** _ Before Earthfall _ **

Rodney sat in his desk chair, his head in his hands. "I honestly had no idea, not until right now." He believed her, finally, and she couldn't help believing him as he looked up at her briefly before dropping his gaze. "But I — I'm sure I would have done the right thing."

He was a terrible liar.

He probably would have been honest, once. _I was a 13-year-old _kid_, Jennifer. There's nothing I could have done_. That was entirely the truth — he was only fourteen by the time she was born, and he couldn't have taken on fatherhood at that age.

If he had known, he could have been involved in putting her up for adoption. Or maybe he could have gotten his parents to raise her, as much a sibling as a daughter. _Maybe_ he could have tried to stay involved while someone else raised her — while her parents raised her, however it was they had gotten involved. At that age, he almost certainly wouldn't have, even if anyone had encouraged it.

But he offered her the polite lie.

She had done that. She had persuaded him to be nicer, to let people down gently, to hide unpleasant truths. She had honestly thought that was better.

But it was the same sort of lie she'd been told all her life. She should have remembered how much polite lies hurt when she knew the truth.

She still wanted the truth, desperately, but now she had nowhere to turn. She couldn't let this news become public, and only so many people could reasonably be expected to know what had happened in the first place. She would be talking to her father — her Dad, the man who had raised her, the man who was still her father in every sense but one — and this time she would make him answer, but she wasn't positive she could expect a real explanation from him. Rodney was supposed to be the one to give her that. Rodney was supposed to have known — that he had fathered a child at all, if not that she was that child. But he didn't.

He looked up at her again, pale and serious. "So what do we do now?"

* * *

** _ After Earthfall _ **

"It's probably something simple, you know," John said. "Some coed didn't really want to be there and saw a way to drop out. A stupid way, but people can be stupid. Maybe that was her mother. Or maybe Jennifer's parents adopted from her."

"Maybe." McKay didn't sound comforted. "She doesn't think so. For either one."

At least they had considered it. "I'm just saying. Occam's Razor."

"Oh, please. The irony that you, of all people, would be lecturing _me_ on Occam's —"

"Don't even try, McKay. What I thought wasn't exactly a leap."

"What you what?" McKay sounded honestly confused.

"Just now, when you channeled Rocky Balboa. Remember?"

"Oh. That." McKay's expression scrunched up. "That doesn't mean you should just go around making accusations like that."

"Look, I know you would never _now_, but you haven't known about this for long, have you? So why the hell does my mentioning that everyone else thinks she's pregnant get me punched? It could have been from before."

"Because we know _now_, and even if we had gone that far before, we're both intelligent adults who know how to use contraception. Would you like me to spell that one for you? Or I could use smaller words."

John was about one offhand insult away from shooting back a few choice remarks of his own, but something else in what McKay said was a little more important at the moment. He rolled his head slightly to get a better view of McKay. "'Even if'? Why do the words 'mile high club' come to mind?"

McKay got his caught-stealing-pudding expression. "Oh, I … that …." He winced. "All right, it's possible I may have made suggestions about certain … prospects. And there may have been some amount of exaggeration. Slightly. And, okay, if you actually believed me about that in particular, you're more of an idiot than I feared, because are you _crazy_? What exactly were we supposed to get up to? We had both just been soaked in freezing-cold water from who even _knows_ what kind of system. That cheap bastard didn't even have fresh clothes for us or offer us a _shower_. And by the way, Jennifer had just been briefly _dead_, and even if we were remotely in any kind of condition, we had the Dalai Lama leering down at us!" The … what? "We just fooled around a little bit. You know, kissing and —" He made a face. "Okay, no, _that_ memory is never going to be okay again. Dammit."

John had been kind of skeptical about that whole story anyway. "So why not just say that? Why make stuff up? And it wasn't just that one time, either. You've been acting —"

"Because I'm tired of being made fun of," McKay snapped, his voice hard. He sighed irritably. "Look, I've had plenty of girlfriends, but Katie was the first one to really stick around for something serious, you know? And we went really slowly, so I figured, that would probably work best with Jennifer. Only I knew what you'd say if you knew that, and it's not like you would have kept it private, either. So, I … suggested otherwise."

Okay, it was possibly true that John would have teased him. It was just teasing, though. It wasn't a big deal.

"So no, we haven't ever. Happy? That's at least the one saving grace here. Except it completely isn't, because what the hell do we do now? Jennifer doesn't want anyone to know, and I really don't either. You know what this place can be like. Both our lives would be hell. Only we don't have a good way to break up either, because we're still trying to figure this whole thing out, so we're spending a lot of time together on that, which doesn't really fit the whole 'breakup' model. And I don't exactly want people thinking she dumped me for some reason, and no matter what we _said_ the reason was, _certain people_ would pry. And then certain _other_ people seem to think I haven't been managing to keep secrets for most of my professional life."

That did kind of suck. "Sounds like you're pretty stuck, buddy."

"Yeah. As I've been forcibly reminded, I'm not getting younger here. I'd like the chance to find someone I could actually _get_ somewhere with. And, well, I want her to be happy, too. Hey, after we figure this all out — because I _really_ don't want people thinking she dumped me for him — do you think maybe Ronon might want to try again? If he does, should I encourage that? On the one hand, I trust him reasonably well. But on the other hand, the paternal imperative might require that I smother him in his sleep if he does try. Or if not when he tries, if it ever falls apart, definitely. I'm not sure I see a happy ending here."

"No killing teammates. That's a rule."

"Of course you'd take his side." McKay sounded a lot more at ease now, though.

"Hey, look at it this way. You don't have to worry about having kids now. You've already passed your genes on, without all that messy child-rearing stuff."

"Trust me, I've been counting that one blessing frequently," McKay said, heartfelt. After a few seconds, he added, "It's tragic she's wasting her heritage on medicine, of course, but at least she's an accomplished genius at it. Naturally."

John waited a few more seconds before speaking again, but hell, if they were going to clear the air, they might as well get it all out there. There was no way in hell he was asking this question if he didn't ask it now. "Look. If she had been pregnant and not, you know, your daughter, would you have left Atlantis? Because you've talked about letting your contract expire."

McKay took a while to answer. "Honestly?" he said finally. "I don't know. I love it here, but …." He sighed yet again. John wasn't going to put him on the spot by looking over at him directly, but from what he could see out of the corner of his eye, McKay looked old and sad and tired. "I'm really tired of being alone. If keeping her meant Earth … I don't know."

That really wasn't the answer John had hoped for. So, fine. He would just have to do something about it. Maybe get McKay to marry an Athosian or something. He took a deep breath and rolled up to his feet, putting out a hand to help McKay up. "Come on. Let's go fix something. Or break something. Your choice."

{}

Two days later, McKay announced with great fanfare that the city no longer had any immediate plans to sink. He then gave orders that he not be disturbed for at least twelve hours and was already halfway asleep by the time John had steered him to his quarters and dumped him in bed.

The day after that, John was having lunch with Ronon and Teyla when McKay and Keller came into the mess together. John was trying not to be obvious about avoiding Teyla, who had been smiling at him approvingly. He knew she was happy he and McKay had "made up", but he didn't want to give her the chance to start asking what could only be _really_ problematic questions. Luckily Ronon was keeping her occupied today.

The volume of chatter in the mess dropped slightly when Rodney and Keller entered, and the quality changed as it gradually resumed its former level.

Rodney headed straight from the food line to their table, and Keller accompanied him with only a slight hesitation. John just nodded at them, and Ronon barely glanced their way, but Teyla beamed at them both. Luckily Rodney didn't give her an opening, immediately launching into criticism of something one of his minions had done.

The noise in the mess rose slightly as he spoke, and Keller clearly had her suspicions about the topic of conversation. She kept glancing over at a few of the noisier groups, though she looked down at her tray, blushing fiercely, when she saw that John had noticed her.

John assumed Rodney was his usual oblivious self, but after glancing at Keller a couple of times, he seemed to get it. He looked over at one of the noisier tables with a thoughtful glare, his mouth clearly running on autopilot as he considered.

After a couple of minutes he abruptly stood and bellowed, "Attention!"

John had no idea Keller's eyes could get that huge.

With almost every eye in the mess on him, Rodney straightened, puffing his chest out. "It has come to my attention that you have all become obsessed with a rumor about me and Jennifer. Obviously nothing about us is any of your business whatsoever, but as your nosiness is now interfering with our ability to have a peaceful lunch, I will clarify matters in the hopes you will all then _shut up_."

Keller was very quietly losing her shit, tugging firmly at Rodney's arm and whispering urgently at him.

He disregarded her, still addressing the room. "I am only going to say this once. Jennifer is not, repeat _not_, pregnant."

Keller froze, her mouth dropping open in shock. Teyla's smile disappeared, her expression turning about as startled as John had ever seen it.

McKay had started to sit back down but suddenly straightened again. "Actually, since a startling number of you have a frighteningly vivid imagination about gate team missions and Ancient devices — or an even more frighteningly poor grasp of basic human biology — I would also like to mention that _I_ am not pregnant, either."

Keller started coughing. Ronon reached over to pound her on the back, looking like only his concern for her was keeping him from laughing out loud.

"So there you have it," Rodney continued. "She isn't pregnant; I'm not pregnant; neither of us is pregnant. Anyone who has been spreading rumors to that effect should be ashamed." He definitely shot Teyla a glance at that, and she ducked her head, avoiding his eyes. "Please transfer your scurrilous rumors to someone else, and until then, kindly _shut up_. That is all." He sat and went right back to eating.

"Um," Keller said finally, faintly. "… Pregnant?"

"Many people thought so," Teyla said uncomfortably. "It seemed a reasonable explanation. I am sorry that I assumed." She glanced over at John, her eyes narrowing. He just smirked back at her, partly because she deserved it and partly because he didn't want her thinking there was anything else to look for. If she was looking at him, she wasn't looking at McKay, who wasn't nearly as good as John at schooling his expression.

Ronon was grinning and promptly started giving Teyla shit. They really got going, so if John hadn't been sitting so close to McKay, he wouldn't have noticed Rodney using their distraction as cover, leaning in close to Keller and murmuring, "No, listen, we can use this …."

John carefully looked over at Ronon and Teyla so neither of them would realize there was anything to see. He leaned back in his chair, the last of the tension he'd been carrying for weeks finally unwinding.

Atlantis was stuck on Earth, for now, and no one knew if they would be allowed to go back to Pegasus or would be trapped on Earth forever, but the people who mattered all agreed they should go back. They would find a way. Most importantly, John's team was intact. Nothing that really mattered would change.

He took a drink of water to hide his smile.


	2. As the Pictures Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neither Rodney nor Jennifer had any idea how it had happened, but one person knew the entire truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings**: Underage sexual activity; creepy dysfunctional OC behavior; possible voyeurism trigger; implications of content in the first part.  
> **Characters**: OCs, young!Rodney, young!Jennifer  
> **Credits**: Beta by [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/trystings/profile)[**sophia-sol**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/sophia-sol/), who pointed out where I yet again failed to include enough motivation in the actual text for certain reactions to make sense; all remaining mistakes mine.  
> **Notes**: This is the backstory/prequel I worked from when writing the first part; it's low on the conspiracy/long-lasting implications angle, but probably no less creepy. Other backstory interpretations are possible, and if anyone wants to try writing them, please feel free (and to let me know, because I'm curious). Incidentally, I tend to hate when fics assign first names to the parents of canon characters — I'm weird, I know — but it was unavoidable here, so my apologies.

Joe Esposito loved Anne Lundquist, and she loved him.

She declined his proposal.

"I can't," she said, smiling sadly across the restaurant table. "I can't do this."

He wanted to protest, to ask what she meant, but he knew. He knew because he'd had to reschedule the dinner twice, and he had been half an hour late, all because of his work. He had still hoped.

"I need someone who will be there," she explained. "I need someone who can make promises. I need to know my husband will come home, every night. I need my children to know their father will always have time for them."

Joe swallowed. "I can't."

Her smile grew a little bigger, still so gentle. "I know. I know that Joe, I really do. I would never ask you not to do what you're doing. It's too important — to everyone, and to you." She reached across the table and took his hand. "I want you to be happy. You deserve that. You deserve a wife who can support you, who won't resent your job … or you. I just can't be that for you."

He was very good at controlling his expression. With his job, he had to be. He made the right faces and said the right things, knowing he could never let her see what her refusal meant. She had to believe he could move on, for her sake. He loved her too much to bind her to him with pity.

She wanted to remain friends. He wasn't strong enough to refuse.

A few months later she met a nice, dull man from a nice, dull town and with a nice, dull job. Bill Keller was a good man she could rely on, and he made her happy. Two years later, Joe danced with her at her wedding and kissed her on the cheek.

Joe never married.

{}

Anne and Bill settled in Chippewa Falls, of all places.

Joe gave them a crock pot and complimented the modest home. He smiled dutifully at the picturesque yard. He didn't tell Anne he could have given her Paris or Lisbon or Hong Kong; she would have loved to see them, but she didn't want that life.

Without her, neither did he. He took an apartment in Minneapolis and made it clear he was willing to take any assignments in that region. His job didn't particularly allow selection of assignments, of course, but more choice assignments would be coveted, so his willingness to take lesser work would be a factor. The location meant a lot of time in the air, getting to DC or bouncing from one of the coasts to parts classified, because Canada wasn't exactly a hotbed of anything, but it kept him close enough to see her occasionally.

"So, why Chippewa Falls?" he asked late that first day, once he was sure he could sound mildly interested rather than mocking. He leaned against the standard-issue tree in the standard-issue backyard and took a sip of the standard-issue beer Bill had offered him.

"Bill's from the area," she answered, rubbing the man's arm with affection. "His parents are just a few miles away." She looked up at the house and smiled happily, her gaze on one of the two small rooms she had particularly shown him — one decorated by the previous owners in pink and one in blue. "And it's a perfect place to raise a family."

{}

Years passed. Ford to Carter. The IRA and the TWA 841 to the Rockefeller Commission and Saigon to the Saur Revolution and Iran. The rise and fall of disco.

Joe saw Anne — and Bill — every few months, give or take. Each time, her smile was dimmer, slower. There were no toys in the yard. The two small rooms waited, staged and empty.

{}

He offered, eventually.

He didn't want to complicate anything, and he certainly didn't want children. But he couldn't bear to see her in pain, and she had sobbed once she was positive Bill was asleep upstairs, letting Joe hold her for the first time in years.

So he held her through the tears, and he gave her tissues to wipe her face afterwards, and he let her regain her composure. And then he offered — no strings, no attachments, no contact between them if she preferred, no one told.

But she refused.

She couldn't do that to him, she said. She couldn't hurt Bill like that.

Joe didn't give a good goddamn about Bill, not when he was hurting Anne this way, regardless of whether it was anyone's fault. Anne said no, though, and he would respect her wishes. Bill would almost certainly have known, given his Scandinavian coloring and Anne's fair features and Joe's far darker hair and eyes and skin. They couldn't count on chance hiding the truth, and Anne wanted Bill enough to deny even this.

Joe made the right faces and said the right things and carefully buried his fury.

{}

Joe's quiet little patch of the country suddenly became a lot more interesting when a nuclear device turned up in Toronto, of all places. He and several other agents were hustled over only to find themselves, after several hours of confusion and tense confrontations, facing a startled but smug preteen.

The kid readily admitted building the thing. That was a problem, because both they and the Canadian agents were fully prepared to have to work a canny agent or terrified stooge. The Canadians were convinced the kid must be part of the youth brigade of some Quebecois separatist thing, while the American agents had a wide variety of potential groups to suspect. The kid didn't act at all the way he should have, which threw them all off. He didn't boast that his group/nation/sect/movement would soon vanquish the capitalists/Yankees/unbelievers/Anglophones, but he wasn't scared, either.

He didn't even ask for his parents. Oh, he _threatened_ with them, insisting that no one could question him without his parents present, but he never once actually _asked_ for them the way any normal kid facing interrogation would. He was arrogant, he was as profoundly condescending as Joe had thought only an older teenager could be, and a bitter anger simmered just below the surface. He answered questions with the same eye-rolling exasperation and rapid, hyper-literate delivery whether he was responding in English or slightly stilted French, automatically matching the language of the questions.

It took six frustrating hours for them all to accept that he really was just a kid with more brains than sense.

From that point on, though, Joe's bosses made sure someone had a general eye on the kid. A twelve-year-old who could go from an aspiring professional pianist to the sole builder of a fuel-ready atomic bomb in a couple of months, obviously with no useful adult supervision worth mentioning, was not someone the CIA planned to lose track of.

{}

Anne and Bill had a barbecue later that summer. It wasn't for the Fourth or for Labor Day; their neighbors had kids, so they always went over to one of the neighbors' for those cookouts. This was just an ordinary August day.

Joe noticed Anne's taut smile before anything else. She was facing one of the neighbors, a woman proudly showing off a toddler. He edged closer to hear Anne calling the girl a "perfect little angel", her smile a rubber band stretched to the breaking point.

Joe closed the gap smoothly. "Hey there, Anne. Sorry to interrupt, but Bill said I should remind you about the marinade."

"Oh, of course. I'd better go get that now." She smiled at Joe, smiled at the woman, smiled at the kid, and hurried into the house.

She came back out again about ten minutes later, clear-eyed and empty-handed, and trailed her fingers across his arm for just a moment in thanks.

{}

That winter Joe drew a month watching the Toronto brat, Meredith. Or Rodney, as he was apparently still insisting. For six solid hours of questioning, the boy had refused to respond to his first name. That phase was apparently still in effect.

They didn't have anything like full-time coverage, not without evident reason and without Canadian clearance, but they made sure to look in on him a few times a week, just watching for trends or trouble spots. Paperwork could be done anywhere, and there were a few groups worth monitoring in the area for the majority of their time and attention.

Joe found himself spending more time than he planned on the kid, watching from cars or wandering adjacent aisles. You'd think the parents might have learned a lesson about keeping an eye on him themselves, but the kid seemed to wander almost at will.

During school hours, Rodney spent about half the day in the school library, working through classes on his own. The system had been keeping him with his age group, but the bomb had apparently changed their minds and they were letting him speed through the remainder of his schooling. Joe wasn't sure that was a great idea, considering what the boy thought _was_ a great idea, but he could see why the school might want to hurry him along and out of their hands.

Rodney showed every indication of being fully invested in this plan, working far more steadily than anyone that age should. He took plenty of breaks for water or hidden snacks, but he always went right back to work, never pausing to wander the library or doodle aimlessly. The one thing he didn't do was work through lunch, instead storing his papers and books carefully in his locker before heading to the lunchroom and then bolting his food down swiftly before heading back.

He was still an obnoxious little twerp, but his mouth didn't get him in as much trouble as it should have. Nearby adults were swift to step in, and the boy often looked briefly startled by the interruption but then smug. Joe was certain the boy didn't see the fear in the adults' eyes.

Outside school, Rodney spent most of his time in the nearest branch of the city library or in his room. Sometimes he had a small girl with him, the younger sister, and he didn't appear to enjoy being responsible for her but he always took her hand for road crossings. She spent a lot of time mimicking him or yelling, and he would frequently yell back but he never once raised a hand to her. Not to hit, anyway; the kid tended to flail when he was agitated.

One day stuck with Joe particularly. It was cold, snow from the last storm still covering the landscape but the roads clear. Joe was doing paperwork in his car that morning, the McKay house in sight, and thinking about the warmer climes he could have been in that very moment if he had made different choices. Both kids emerged from the front door, the girl hurrying over to her lopsided snowman and the boy hovering near the door, clutching a book. They both had heavy coats and gloves. When Joe was the boy's age, everyone's hair had been kept tidily short, but Rodney's loose curls were in the longer style that was now common. In their winter caps, the two children looked remarkably similar, her bright gold curls and his darker blond ones haloing around their faces.

_Perfect little angels_. To look at them, anyway.

The girl played around for a while as the boy sat on the steps to read his book. She eventually went over and pulled on his arm, and after a brief resistance he put down the book to join her. They played with the snow for a few minutes, but then they disagreed about something, the girl stubbornly refusing and the boy gesturing with increasingly broad motions. Finally the boy went back to his book, ignoring the girl, though he did look up every now and then as if to make sure she hadn't wandered into the street.

The girl went back to her snowman for a while longer, then spun in a circle until she fell down, then made a snow angel. She stood up from that and planted her hands on her hips, considering the shape she'd made. Then she went over to the boy, who tried to send her away again. It took him several tries and some yelling, but eventually she stomped away a few feet, her little arms folded across her chest.

Then she scooped up a double handful of snow, pressed it together, and threw it at her brother.

He scrambled up, frantically brushing the snow off the book and himself, yelling again. Joe thought he heard a giggle as the girl prepared and threw a second snowball, which just made the boy angrier. After the third, he put the book down by the door and started throwing snow back at her.

The girl had the better arm.

The girl was playing, the boy really wasn't, and they traded several volleys before the door opened. Both children immediately pointed to each other, though anyone could have predicted the twelve-and-a-half-year-old wasn't winning that argument against the four-year-old. The boy's arms were soon flapping in outrage and the door closed again.

The boy said something to the girl and went to sit back down. After a few seconds she knelt, clearly meaning to scoop up more snow, but the boy stood again and went over to her, bending over to say something right into her face. He went back to his book, and she threw a handful of snow at the car before stomping back over to her snowman.

After about twenty minutes she went back over to her brother, apparently asking something because the boy shook his head, not looking up. She didn't move away, though, and after another minute or two she burrowed in against his side, huddling against him. The boy looked up at the house and shook his head again, moving his arm to wrap it around her. They stayed that way for a few minutes, and then the boy stood, tucking the book up under one arm and holding his other hand out to his sister. They headed away from the house and down the street, not looking back even once.

After a few minutes Joe got out and strolled after them. He caught up with them at the library, where the boy was softly reading something complex about black holes to his sister as she dozed against him.

Joe couldn't imagine any sort of national security threat stemming from Canadian almost-teens reading about black holes, so he headed back to his car. The whole way back, he tried not to think how well Anne would have fit with the two children, or how certain he was that she would have been out there with them and bundling them back inside when they got cold or tired, or how much it pissed him off that the whole world seemed to be divided between those who had and didn't deserve, and those who deserved and couldn't have.

{}

Anne invited Joe every holiday. He could make no promises, of course, but he was able to be there for the next Easter. He expected a big meal, perhaps also a church service, but Anne had volunteered to help coordinate the Easter egg hunt.

He and Bill watched from well to the side. Bill tried to chat with him about some crazy baseball game over in New England the night before, based on some second- or third-hand account he'd gotten. Bill looked anywhere but at the field of children.

Joe nodded along to the story, watching as Anne went to the rescue of overwhelmed or outnumbered parents. She moved from one frustrated or distressed child to the next, soothing and calming them, encouraging them towards easy finds.

She remained until every child had been gathered back by their parents and bustled away. Even then she lingered, clearing bits of litter and the occasional unfound egg, until Bill went out to draw her away.

{}

September and Joe was back in Toronto. The city was no more interesting this time than the last.

The McKay boy was still speeding through his coursework, setting his own pace for math and science and grudgingly fulfilling double-time requirements for everything else. He was being allowed to take a couple of classes at a nearby college, as well, math and science again, though Joe wondered where the kid found the time.

He went through the latest observations while McKay was at school. Someone had tracked down a proud parent's 8mm film of a recital from back in 1979, so he went ahead and watched the dupe his people had made of that. Which kid the recording was for was revealed by a burst of applause very near the camera's microphone; that kid sounded okay to Joe's untrained ears but nothing special. The recording kept going, though, through players decent and bad, until the final performer was announced. _Meredith McKay_, the woman stated, and the kid made no objection to that, just nodding and sitting to play.

Even Joe could tell he was far beyond the others, the selection significantly more complex, the notes as perfect and precise as a music box.

This was why they still had an eye on him. This recital was only two years earlier, and every indication they had was clear: The boy cared only about the piano. Someone that focused simply _didn't_ turn into a science prodigy in the space of months, not without deserving real attention.

The science wasn't as completely unfounded as they had initially thought, at least. The father, they had learned, had been setting extra coursework since the kid could read, so McKay had exposure to far more of the basics of science than his classes had suggested. He was further along still with math. "Musician," one of the other agents said, agreeing. "Makes sense." Joe didn't see the connection, but he would accept that there was one.

That foundation made McKay's leap into successful bomb design in such a short period merely worrying rather than impossible. Worrying and worth attention. _Someone_ would find a way to make use of that kind of adaptable intelligence.

It was always possible it would all come to nothing, though, because McKay had hit puberty in a major way.

That had apparently really kicked in over the summer, going by the notes of the previous agents, and Joe saw it pretty quickly himself. McKay had eyes for nearly every female figure to cross his path, and several times he had been seen hurrying to the nearest restroom, emerging pink but relieved. So far he was keeping up with his excessive schoolwork despite the distraction, but there was no telling how long that would last.

Several agents were quietly betting McKay's studying pace would falter as he turned his attention to the opposite sex, idling as his peers caught up. The majority didn't really buy that it would happen, but pretty much all of them wouldn't have minded. This assignment, even as part-time coverage, was no one's favorite.

The same arrangement held at the local school, so Joe didn't bother to spend much time there. After that, several days a week, McKay made his way over to the college that was letting him sit in on classes. Joe sat in on a few of those, too, which turned out to be a good call, because he soon noticed other students approaching McKay for quiet conversations. McKay wasn't heading directly home after most classes, either.

Maybe the surveillance would pay off after all.

Joe trailed McKay one afternoon the following week and watched as he went into a fraternity house. Joe's generic workman's uniform and tool kit would suffice, so he waited a short while and then headed in himself, waving his mock school identification at the guy watching the door and muttering about the electrical system. He poked around, touring the house by way of its light switches and power outlets, until he heard McKay's strident tones all the way from the other end of a hall.

McKay sounded worked up but not immediately distressed, so Joe moved carefully towards the room until he could hear conversation easily. He didn't have to wait long before McKay spoke again. "No! Look, if you do that, you'll end up with _x = -x_. It's wrong!" McKay let out a long groan of frustration. "Come on, this is easy. My little sister could do this and she's only four and a half!"

The strange thing was that he might not be wrong about that. The girl had been tested, and she was very likely to follow in her brother's footsteps. Intellectually, at least. Quite a few people were determined that she would not be following McKay's example of bomb-making.

Maybe there was something in the water.

The second person's words became clear for the first time as his volume rose in frustration. "So I don't get it! That's what I'm paying you for! Explain it, already!"

"I'm not sure you're paying me enough," McKay shot back, but the two apparently settled down. Joe had heard enough anyway. The conversations and meet-ups weren't any kind of conspiracy. As daunting as the prospect might be, McKay was just tutoring, never mind that his students were almost half again his age.

{}

Joe didn't drop it immediately; he was a professional, and this was something they had to be sure about. He contrived to eavesdrop on another three sessions, managing to fix a broken light switch entirely by chance in the process, but he heard nothing to suggest the tutoring sessions were anything but what they seemed.

That third session was on the weekend, and McKay didn't leave the fraternity afterwards. The session had run long, a good half hour into the start of a party downstairs, and rather than heading home, McKay wandered into the party, eyeing the girls with appreciation.

Joe trailed him, as much from concern as duty. McKay really was too young for this sort of thing, but no one seemed to care. A couple of guys looked ready to kick McKay out, but they ended up shrugging and ignoring him, possibly because McKay was tutoring several of them. If McKay's parents cared where he was, it would be a first.

Joe kept to the edges, inconspicuous in the dim light, just keeping an eye out. Over the next couple of hours, the partiers passed from raucousness to intensity, finding meaning in drinks or in each other.

McKay wound up on a sofa in a corner with a profoundly drunk coed, a blonde with that ice skater's haircut. She was giggling at him, and her giggling only increased when he cautiously felt her breasts. Joe edged closer, trying to decide if there was a point at which he should intervene. He could _probably_ manage it without blowing his cover, but it was a risk.

The two groped for a bit, the girl soon guiding McKay's hand up under her short skirt. After he had poked around a while to her murmured directions, she reached over to unfasten his pants, but he batted that hand away.

Apparently McKay had drawn lessons from the fact his parents had married only five months before he was born. Joe sighed quietly in relief that McKay did have some amount of sense and control.

That control didn't extend to his physical reaction, though. He was plainly aroused, and it wasn't long at all before he was thrusting his clothed crotch against the girl's caressing hand and then stiffening and gasping with release.

He didn't stay with the girl much longer, leaving her to mutter a disgusted "_Pig_" as he headed for the bathroom, walking with obvious discomfort. A couple of minutes later he emerged, walking with a completely different awkward stride, so Joe slipped into the bathroom to poke around.

The explanation was easy to find. McKay's briefs rested at the top of the trash, nestled in a thick bed of paper towels.

It shouldn't have meant anything at all. Joe should have turned and left, following until McKay got home and then going on with his life.

The problem was that he stopped to think.

He didn't do it on purpose. He simply noticed the emission-stained underwear and happened to wonder why McKay's parents didn't bother to do their job of keeping track of him.

Unfortunately that simple thought cascaded. Parents. Those who shouldn't be and those who should. Children growing up too quickly and perfect little angels. Haloes of bright hair. Why Joe couldn't help Anne himself, and what Bill couldn't give her.

What was right in front of Joe now.

Anne.

{}

It was a party. There were all sorts of supplies in the kitchen, such as sandwich bags and ice. Plastic spoons. Even a Thermos.

{}

Joe waited in his car, a few houses away, until Bill emerged for some kind of yardwork. A couple of minutes after that, he pulled up to their house, raising a hand in casual greeting to Bill as he rang the doorbell.

Anne looked confused and then quietly pleased when she answered the door. He didn't give her a chance to speak, shoving the Thermos into her hands and making her look confused again.

"It's not mine," he said immediately. "I swear to you, it's not mine. You don't know him. He doesn't know about this. He'll never know."

"Joe? What is this?"

He gave her a tiny smile. "Blond hair, blue eyes. Just like Bill." She started to frown, started to understand. "Very intelligent," he added. "Even plays piano."

She gasped, her eyes wide with shock and horror. "No. _No_, Joe, I can't —"

"Anne, _please_," he said, pouring the full measure of his love for her into his intensity. "This isn't about what I need. It's not about what Bill needs. It's about what _you_ need. Please, just one time, take care of yourself. Just once."

He turned and left swiftly before she could find her voice, waving to Bill again on the way. He had spent less than five minutes there, both of them in full view, so no one would suspect her of any impropriety with him. That was important, because her reputation mattered to him. She mattered to him, more than anything else in his life.

He saw now that he would do anything, quite literally _anything_, for her.

As soon as he got to his apartment, he called his boss and asked for the most remote assignment possible.

{}

The invitations stopped.

He wouldn't have been around for them anyway, too busy with crash courses in Spanish and trips southward, but he checked his answering machine and had someone keeping an eye on his mail. No word from them for months, a year.

He finally did get word from them, well over a year later. The envelope held only a clipping from a newspaper. It was a birth announcement, the date about nine months after Joe's last visit.

They had named their daughter Jennifer.

{}

Years passed. Reagan, Gorbachev, Thatcher. Afghanistan, the Falklands, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, Libya. Air India 182, proving once again that Canadians weren't as quiet as they seemed. Chernobyl and the Challenger. Iran-Contra, Pinochet, Duvalier. Political structures changing in Central America and Eastern Europe with dizzying speed.

Joe expected he wouldn't see Anne again, so the invitation was a surprise.

It didn't seem to be _for_ anything in particular. It simply asked that he visit sometime that summer, just to catch up, since it had been so long.

He knew better than to go. He went anyway.

It was awkward. Bill was cool and distant, though not as actively aggressive as Joe had expected. Anne was stiff and uneasy. They asked politely how he'd been, and he gave the usual empty answers. He asked how they'd been, and they answered with similarly empty phrases.

They both changed completely when the girl came racing into the room, shouting, "Daddy, daddy, daddy!"

Bill caught her up easily, smiling as he pointed out that they had company. The girl looked up at Joe with wide eyes, shyly pressing herself against Bill's legs but offering a quiet greeting when prompted.

After that Joe was swept into a tour of the house and their current life. The girl soon overcame her shyness and turned out to be quite the chatterbox, merrily telling whichever adult was nearest stories about her toys, her friends, or animals she'd seen.

Joe didn't realize Bill was waiting for an opening until Anne was busy helping Jenny get something to drink, though he should have been more careful. The anger he was expecting didn't appear, though. Bill just looked steadily into the kitchen, away from Joe, as he spoke. "Look, what you did … whatever you did, it was wrong. But …." He cleared his throat softly. "Thank you. For Jenny. Thank you."

Joe nodded stiffly and headed into the kitchen, because he hadn't done anything for Bill's sake.

The brief moment he had alone with Anne didn't go as he expected, either. They sat in the living room and Anne told happy stories of her daughter as Jenny played with one of her toys and Bill went to prep the grill.

The girl marched up to Joe and shoved one end of her toy stethoscope against Joe's navel. "You have appendix-itis," she declared firmly. She went over to her tea set, carefully poured imaginary tea into one of the cups, and presented it to him as his medicine. He thanked her and mimed sipping from the cup until she turned away.

"She's different," Anne said abruptly.

Joe looked over at her and said nothing.

Anne kept her voice low. "She's smart. Really smart. She's already reading. Not just easy books, either. She picks things up so fast … I couldn't leave her alone for even a second, for years, because she'd get past anything. She says she wants to be a doctor, and the questions she asked at the last visit, they were so …. She doesn't really play with other children her age, because she gets bored. This isn't … I don't know what to do."

"Don't hold her back," Joe said. He had seen what that kind of intelligence turned into after years of boredom, frustration, and social isolation. "If she needs to skip ahead, make sure they let her."

"But she won't fit in," Anne protested.

"She doesn't now," Joe pointed out. Anne winced, conceding. "Don't make that worse. Make sure she has enough to challenge her. It'll help. Trust me."

Anne nodded. They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the girl tend one of her stuffed animals.

Joe understood that she was shaken to see traits that came from someone she'd never met, especially considering what suspicions she might have had about how Joe came across him, given what she knew about his line of work. Anyone could see the girl was at least as much Anne, though, if not more. She might have gotten McKay's intelligence, but her eyes and her smile were entirely Anne's, and the hair could have been from either or both of them. Personality was always hard to figure out, but nothing about the girl reminded him of McKay at all, and with Anne for a mother, he was sure she would never become like him, either.

"What about music?" Joe asked finally. That was the only other thing he had told Anne about McKay. "You try her on the piano?"

Anne laughed shakily. "No. No, she's terrible at it." Joe smiled at that. The girl was lecturing a teddy bear sternly, so he could pretend he hadn't heard Anne add a whispered, "Thank God." He could pretend he hadn't seen a hint of fear shadowing the love and affection in her eyes when she looked at her daughter.

{}

The years slipped by faster and faster. Once the Soviet Union fell, nothing was the same; the Cold War was his career, and he wasn't quite young enough to adjust easily. The Berlin Wall fell, and suddenly it was the Gulf War, Bosnia and the Chechens, Rwanda and Kosovo. Skirmishes in a much larger war were abandoned in favor of bloodbaths for only their stated purpose. Within the US, political espionage was out and political bombings were in, as if even these were merely matters of fashion.

Even Canada followed suit, in its pallid way, its political parties decentralizing and the country itself flirting with fragmentation, though that passed soon enough.

Joe still heard from Toronto 80, that loose grouping of agents who had spent time tracking McKay in the early 80s and who had given themselves the name in the solidarity of boredom. They caught up with one another from time to time, as they crossed paths, content to share something so mundane. According to them, McKay hadn't burned out at all and had successfully been wooed to work with the US military, so he counted as a success.

Joe was relieved, because there had always been a small chance that Jenny and McKay might run into each other at some college or another. Luckily, the best pre-med and medical schools for a student who wanted to stay near her home in Wisconsin didn't overlap much with the sort of hard-science schools preferred by a student trying to get as far from Toronto as practical.

Then Anne was gone.

{}

Jenny was still a little unsteady in heels. Joe hadn't seen enough of her recently to know if that was because of lack of practice or because she hadn't yet grown comfortable in her body. She circulated among the mourners dutifully, but her eyes were red and she clutched a handkerchief in one hand.

"Sorry about your mom, Jenny," Joe said when she greeted him.

"Jennifer," she responded automatically. Then she shook herself and gave him an apologetic smile. Anne's smile. "Sorry, Uncle Joe. It's just, I'm trying to go by _Jennifer_ now. People don't really take me seriously if they call me _Jenny_."

McKay had scowled. _It's Rodney_, he had insisted. _Rod-ney. I can use my middle name if I want_. He hadn't apologized.

Joe nodded. "Jennifer, then." He moved smoothly on into soothing, meaningless conversation, knowing that this might be the last time they ever spoke.

Because with Anne gone, everything would change.

His only obligation had always been to Anne. He had been ready to hide McKay's identity for the rest of their lives, for her sake. Now, though, any obligation he had left was to Jenny — Jennifer — and that only because of the faint echo of Anne he could see in her. He had to make sure that if Jennifer needed to get to her one surviving genetic parent for some reason, she could.

McKay was linked to some program Joe couldn't even get a whisper about, but he knew people who would know the right people. He could pull strings to make sure Jennifer was given every chance to end up somewhere near McKay. She was a doctor; they were useful anywhere, and she was brilliant enough to write her own ticket to nearly any program that existed.

He would arrange this one last thing for her, as his final gift to Anne.

They talked briefly about her work and about what her father would do now. As they spoke, Joe made the right faces and said the right things, carefully hiding that he no longer felt anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler warnings: Potential incest (averted); implied underage sexual activity.  
> Subtitle from "Blood Sings" by Suzanne Vega.
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
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